Harley has everything a vampire-white witch hybrid could want: wonderful parents, a hunky sort-of boyfriend, and a clan of loving friends. When that life is taken away from her, Harley doesn’t want to serve revenge up cold. She wants to serve it up now, and she wants to serve it up HOT. And then Kian enters her life and she knows, she just knows she is in trouble because it isn’t wise to let yourself look too long at a hunk that takes your breath away when you think his heart might belong to someone else. But what can you do, when he is in your face every single time you turn around and dark magic, and werewolves keep getting you into trouble?

Even as children they were forces to be reckoned with, but now Stevie and Wendy McChauncey and their friend Bray are all grown up. Stevie is a Druid high priest, Wendy is a Fios with blossoming Druid powers, and Bray has come into his majority as a Royal Fae Prince.

And when Cain Crowton, a powerful alpha werewolf surrounded with an aura of dark magic, moves into the peaceful town of Golden, nestled in the Canadian Rockies, Wendy, Bray, and Stevie will have to use all the powers they’ve developed. For Cain is not simply a werewolf. His body and mind have been taken over by Valmod, a demon from another realm.

Valmod tasted temporary defeat at the hands of Daoine Fae Kian and his vampire-shifter hybrid mate Harley. But he’s had time to recover and to plan his comeback. And he has chosen Wendy to be the mate by his side as he takes over the Human Realm, and beyond.

What would you do if you awoke and found you were wolfen? Wendy runs. She doesn’t want to hurt her loved ones and she needs to get control of the violence inside of her.She was bitten by the alpha wolf, Cain, and because she was already a supernatural, the werewolf venom has a strange and devastating effect on her.

Tracking her is her Fae Prince, Bray who is determined to save her and find a remedy for the painful condition of turning with each moon. With him are her brother and her friend Kate.
Together, they fight an evil force, Cain, who is so much more than he represented himself to be. He wants and means to infiltrate the Human Realm, town by town and insinuate himself as the leading power.

Rescued by Wendy and Bray, Cain emerges forever altered. The elixir he was administered to save his life is changing him. He is no longer werewolf, but shifter and Fae and the Fae inside of him is fighting for dominance.

All he wants is to get to his pack and tell them he is alive, but when he finds out that Beckett Rheams has taken over his wolves, he becomes obsessed with saving them and Maven. Maven had shared his bed, but, did he love her? Was she the one destined to be his mate?

That is a question that will haunt him as Tara explodes into his world.

Tara is a Daoine princess who is trying to find redemption and prove herself to her queen and her family. Cain needs help, and she decides she is the one to help him. She is sure he needs Fae training. She is sure he is too good and not ready to face a creature like Beckett Rheams, and she is sure, she is the one to help him.

However, when these two meet, worlds collide in an explosion of sensations, with Rheams and Maven hovering with their own agenda.

Now, Harley Awakening is available free for download from Amazon. Click here to get your copy now!

Excerpt from Harley Awakening

As I looked around I couldn’t help being proud of my mom as she laughed and hugged our guests. As always I was struck by her beauty. Her long red hair blowing in the summer breeze made her easy to find amongst the crowd of our friends. Dad liked to say I was her twin. I suppose I was, except for my eyes. I got his amber eyes instead of Mom’s green ones. I teased her a lot, telling her they were ‘witchy green.’

Dad pulled her in for a kiss. I made sure they saw me put a finger in my mouth as though to gag, and they laughed. They weren’t more than twenty feet away, and life at that moment seemed beautiful and perfect.

In a human’s heartbeat, all that changed.

A minute before they came, I felt it.

My mother and I had a moment together. I knew she knew as well. We both shouted ‘Run!’ at the same time. But there was no time, none, because our clan didn’t understand. Even as they heard us tell them to run, they looked around and hesitated.

Escape was not an option. Total and gripping fear raced through my body. A threat was no longer just in the air. It had arrived, surrounded, stormed.

“Harley,” my mother screamed and ran to me. She held up a vial she had produced from her jeans pocket. “Drink this, baby—now. Hurry.”

“What? What is it?” I asked and saw something desperate in her eyes, those beautiful, witchy green eyes, and it scared the shit out of me. I knew in that moment that the worst thing ever was about to take place. “Mom?”

“Drink!” she shouted as she poured the damned stuff down my throat. I choked on the first swallow and then took the vial away from her and downed it like I was doing a shot.

I saw relief on her face.

“Baby, I didn’t know it would be so soon. I knew, but I thought we had time. I’m sorry … I hoped I was wrong. I hoped we’d have more time. Today was supposed to be your big day, a party for your birthday. I am so sorry.” Tears ran down her lovely cheeks.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my clan begin to gather, back to back. Most of them were unarmed and unfit to take on what was coming, but the scent now was all around us.

Everything happened at once. I stood helpless … like when you reach out to save someone and right in front of you they are taken.

My world was shattered in that old cliché, that blink of an eye.

They came with wicked and bloody intent … they came. I had never seen werewolves that huge, vicious, and purposeful—and it was daytime. What the hell? I stood for a moment, horrified, as I watched my beloved friends try to fight them off. These werewolves were as large as horses, each one with eyes crazed with a vicious ‘kill intent’. Blood splattered everywhere as they attacked from every direction. It was a chaos of screams, painful bellows, and victorious howls.

Some of our clan tried to scatter, some stood to fight. All were being taken down and brutally torn apart. Blood covered the grass …

The atmosphere had the stench of blood, vampire blood—my clan’s blood….

Putting pen to paper came easy. I needed to write–I loved to write, thus, writing was a given. Going through the process of creating a story—putting it together into a first novel and then presenting it to the world—quite another thing. Just out of school and painfully shy (and I really still am) knocking on doors and asking someone to read my book was (for me) a death defying feat.

I loved English—Irish–Scottish history and had traveled just enough to know the ‘look and feel’ of their beautiful countries. Hence, my regencies such as “Spring Gambit”, Sunday’s Child, and “Myriah” were born. Out of my regencies came my larger and sexier historical romances, such as “Cassandra”, “Blades of Passion”, and “Fire & Desire”, most of which were published by Fawcett. Many of my other titles can be checked out when you go to the links listed below.

However, my daughter lectured me and said that I should write about myself like I write my stories—so here goes…

While I have a fanciful imagination, I am a Capricorn—‘sure and steady’, and the obvious conflict leaves me jumbled. I have a computer, yes (invaluable), but I still jot down ideas on a scrap piece of paper, or a napkin in a restaurant. My imagination follows me wherever we go and sees so much more than meets the eye, and very often my husband will ask, ‘where are you now, baby?’

My dad was the one who clicked into my brain early on, and opened my mind to a world where a girl/woman could be so much more than ‘pretty in pink’. He told me to soar, and soaring for me, was writing.

We love horses and riding and when we migrated from New York to North Carolina we brought our barn with us—and yes, I’d rather muck out a stall than clean a house! My Irish, blue-eyed husband had to have a wolf and so we brought in our little hybrid wolf pup to our home. She is ¾ wolf/ ¼ German shepherd named Cherokee. Her 3 yr. old son (Rocky) is huge and eats everything and anything he can find and weighs more than 170 pounds!

Ireland and Scotland gave us the Fae and the Druids. In Ireland you can still visit the ‘Faery Mounds’. Think of the possibilities. I have and I’d love for you to join me as I explore them. So then, come with me and let’s see where we can go…

But before we venture into her book, let us hear from Lynn, what drink does she recommend for Friday night to go with our reading.

Drink? Usually cherry brandy when I’ve got cramps or can’t sleep. Otherwise, when I’m out, I love something sweet. And being a chocolate person and more of a sweet craver than anything I love a Brandy Alexander. Yeah, these days it’s hard to find a bartender that can mix them, but they are an absolute dream, a chocolate soda that gives you angel wings! (It goes down real easy, so be careful you won’t realize how powerful it is) The recipe on line says a Brandy Alexander, (served straight up without ice!), grated nutmeg, 3 cl (1 part) Cognac and 3 cl (1 part) brown Creme de cacao, 3 cl (1 part) Fresh cream. (If you are making it at home around Yule, try substituting eggnog for the cream). Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.(The recipe I found didn’t say it, but I think there should be crushed ice in the mixing cup, that’s what you strain out). Sprinkle with fresh ground nutmeg. And the place to drink it is Cobbs Mill Restaurant, it was originally a prerevolutionary grain mill in Weston, Connecticut. It is my favorite restaurant in all the world and shows up in my novels occasionally. Upstairs you sit and look out over the mill pond, but go down to the downstairs dining, to the small bar tables right alongside the waterfall. Sit at the little table, if you aren’t love, you will be soon. (Cobbs Mill closed, reopened–I was there with my husband and sons for my birthday this year–then closed again. Watch the website, they say its getting ready to reopen! Go, and you may see me there, holding a cream colored cocktail glass up high in celebration of all that is warming and sweet in life!

Blurb:

In ORR: FATAL DNA I combine my love of seance and history with a hidden treasure that has been lost since the Revolutionary War, and a present day murder of a billionaire patron at Oyster River Research. Although Grace Farrington only wants to continue her pioneering research, one of her on again off again lovers is accused of murder, but in this book she had three intriguing men pursuing her. However, she also is the being persued by a cold blooded murderer. Finally the puzzles–two sets–are ultimately solved with some clever DNA sleuthing, psychic adventures, her cast of New England eccentrics.

Excerpt:

Oyster River Harbor, King’s Colony of Connecticut

July 15, 1778

Captain Elijah Dell squinted at the thunder clouds closing in over the slate-gray sound. Hours till sunset but rolling fog already obscured distant Long Island, an evil omen for this day’s work. White caps foaming the crests of growing waves that now pounded the beach sand. Standing closer to the sea, his daughter-in-law Rebecca stared out, paying no heed as the advancing yellow foam lapped over her boot tips. With such a Devil’s storm brewing, would Christopher dare it in only a two man sloop? Instead, should they take Elijah’s fishing boat tied back in the harbor? It would handle the waves but stand out in Wallabout bay causing the British to question. Nay. Elijah shifted his left arm again, must’ve hurt it when the sail shifted, now it was numb and that added misery to the cold that sat on his chest, making breathing painful. Getting old, when all a man wanted was to be home soaking up warmth before his hearth fire. But there was Eli– his youngest boy and Mae’s last living child. Now Eli suffered with the rest in that hell hole of prison ship under the decks, in stinking July heat: Eli, Samuel, Willy, and Jacob. If Christopher would sail to Wallabout this day, and he would for enough coin, then Elijah must crew no matter how badly he felt. Did they have enough to ransom Eli and the others? Elijah turned his eyes from the surf. Now in these times, he had to watch for dangers from the land too as his own former friends and neighbors might turn him over to the British as a traitor. Movement. He squinted, now he could see two figures coming out of the trees, down to the beach, two women in blowing capes. One unnaturally tall, Long Liz, his sister, her blonde hair streamingwith gray, and beside her trudging in the sand, that brown faced servant, Posey. Liz was his sister, but her husband Seth was a wealthy Loyalist, siding with King George, who would have them all hanged. Elijah sneaked a look to the whitening sea and curse softly. Over the dark, rolling water he could see the top of a sloop’s gray canvas sail. Better get Loyalist Liz out of here, before Christopher makes land. Elijah turned suddenly and felt dizzy, he had to stop and catch a painful breath, before he trod forward in the deep sand. Rebecca was hanging back as cold Liz’s imperial manner always cowed her. His sister waited above the black-green sodden mounds of seaweed at the high water line not wanting her fine linen cloak to get stained. As he approached, she looked directly in his eyes. Most women he always had to look down to, but Liz was his equal in ungainly height.

She spoke first. “Storm coming in.”

“Hear the red coats will be getting here first,” he said a bit coldly.

“Our King’s soldiers protect us.” Her voice lost some of its hauteur and held sisterly concern when she said, “You look terrible, Elijah, your face is gray.”

“Tis the poor light.”

“You’re an old man, who should be home before your firestead.”

“Even the flames are cold without my Mae.”

Liz looked away in shame. “I was not there when you laid your wife to rest.”

“Half the town of Oyster River was not there,” he said bitterly. “None of your good King’s friends showed up to respect a woman they’d known their whole lives.”

“They know your son for a rebel.” There was a silence, then Liz said painfully. “I should have been there…but Seth forbid it.”

Elijah nodded. “The Lord God has ordained that a wife must obey her husband. Mae would have understood that.”

Looking pained she said, “What would the Lord think of our town splitting so?”

“I seek no war with King or Rebel. I only wish to fish and be left alone.”

“But your son…”

“Eli listened to his fine friends. They joined a militia to battle the injustices of freeborn Englishmen not allowed to speak on their destiny, but a Connecticut Colony man should not have been fighting in New Jersey! Now Eli pays for his folly, rotting in a prison ship.”

“Then you know where he is?”

“Perhaps imprisoned in Wallabout bay with Jacob Hoyt , Samuel Chapel, and Willy Jamison. That’s where we think they took them after the battle.”

“Seth says the military will subdue Connecticut, as they have Boston and New York. When that happens, the rebels–or anyone who treated with them–will be expelled. Where will you go? The Indies? Not west into the dark forests with the painted savages…” She actually sounded pained…..

Lynn lives in Connecticut and has written radio and television scripts and texts for comic books. She lives in the woods… often avoids writing by talking to friends. She talks to chipmunks, the squirrels, robins (spring), raccoons (night), frogs (summer), fish (fast), deer (seldom), tulip trees and occasionally large, intelligent rocks.

Welcome to Liquid Friday. We have included a drink featured in Violet Blooms for ADULTS 21 and over- please, drink responsibly.

A bit about Violet:

I think what makes our character Violet most approachable are her imperfections. She’s coping with real world problems in a very human way. It gives her a vulnerability that is so irresistible and charming that it’s easy for us to go along the journey with her.